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New Girls’ School Benefits 240 Students in Kunduz’ Imam Sahib District

18.01.2019

Yesterday, the Afghan-German Cooperation finished the handover of a newly constructed girls’ school to Kunduz Province’s Department of Education. The school is located in Ortabulaqi Village in the district Imam Sahib and offers eight classrooms. More than 240 girls from eleven villages in the area benefit from the educational facility. The new school shall encourage local families to send their girls here as it is nearby and easily accessible. The Afghan-German Cooperation’s Stabilisation Programme Northern Afghanistan (SPNA) financed the construction works at a total cost of almost AFN 19.6 million.

Kunduz’ Director of Education, Mr Najib Saqib, commented, ‘We are really happy about this project’s successful implementation that has resulted in this nice girls school in Imam Sahib District.’ He added, ‘We really appreciate SPNA’s activities in our province and hope to witness further projects for strengthening the education sector in the future.’

In the past, there was no girls’ school building in the area. Students had to cope with long and challenging ways to school and had classes under tents. To improve the situation, the District Development Assembly (DDA) of Imam Sahib and the Department of Education initiated the girls’ school’s construction in 2016. More than 240 students will benefit from an adequate learning environment that also offers protection from weather conditions such as heavy rain.

Imam Sahib District’s governor, Mr Mahbubullah Sayedi, emphasised, ‘We really appreciate that such projects are implemented in a way that involves local communities and governments. This is really important for supporting good governance and we hope that this continues in the future.’

In addition to fully equipped class rooms, the Ortabulaqi Girls School offers a laboratory, a computer room, four administrative rooms, a storage, a guard room, and an information room. A bathroom is also located within the building. Further, a 320 meters long wall surrounds the school to ensure a safe learning environment. Equipment includes chairs, desks, computers and couches. A 40-meter tube drinking water well and a latrine are also located on the schools’ premises.

In addition to the construction works, SPNA financed a three-day operation and maintenance (O&M) training for the school’s O&M committee and provided related tools. Kunduz’s Department of Education, the school’s administration and the local school Shura are responsible for operating and maintaining the newly constructed girls’ school.

The KfW Development Bank implements the Stabilisation Programme Northern Afghanistan (SPNA) on behalf of the German Federal Foreign Office (AA). The programme aims at strengthening local governance structures in Northern Afghanistan and improving the rural population’s living conditions. Thus, the programme supports various infrastructure activities and capacity development. So far, SPNA has already almost 400 projects in over 50 districts of Badakhshan, Kunduz, Takhar, and Baghlan including the construction, rehabilitation or extension of over 280 schools and other educational facilities, 39 roads and bridges and 16 irrigation canals. At the same time, the project has trained roughly 18,000 development council members in project selection and monitoring. The programme’s total budget amounts to more than AFN 7 billion for the period from 2010 to 2019.